HITMC Takeaways From a Rookie

I had the privilege of attending my very first Healthcare IT Marketing and PR Community (HITMC) conference. If you aren’t familiar with this, check it out. This is an awesome community to learn from and engage with. The HITMC conference is two days of learning and networking.

I loved this conference because it wasn’t about selling a service or appearing better than others in your industry, but honestly listening to those within your field and gleaning from their insight. The entire conference was impactful, but there were some key points that I wanted to share to add value to others.

1. Customers Don’t Care About Your Product or Service

They care about how you solve their problem. I’m so glad John Lynn said this. It seems like it’s easy to get wrapped up in your service/product and focus your time on figuring out how to best prove to customers your product is better than your competitors, it’s the best in the market, etc.

However, they don’t care about any of that. Show customers how your product will solve their problem, and that will speak volumes. It’s all about perspective. That leads me to my next point.

2. See the Other Perspective

Case in point. This visual cracked me up, but it’s quite accurate. Put yourself in the shoes of your target audience. This may change what you think is useful content, how to reach your audience or something else you had not thought of. Perspective is everything, so try not to get caught up in your own.

3. Figure out Where Your Target Audience is, and be There

Don’t waste time on social media platforms that are not beneficial and/or where your target audience isn’t. It is not necessary to be on all social media platforms, and sometimes you just don’t have the bandwidth. If that’s the case, be on the necessary ones and be good at them.

Tie social media goals into Google Analytics or another analytics tool to help show what is indeed working and proving ROI.

4. Personalize Communication

Long gone are the days of blasting thousands of people with the same message. You can still do that, but your chances of substantial success are slim. Meet people where they are. You can target by demography, geography, device, platform, or some other factor.

Personalized communication is a tactical part of account-based marketing (ABM) too, which I highly recommend you seriously consider implementing in your organization. Side note: our agency earned our ABM certification through Demandbase!

5. Paid Social is Sometimes a Necessity

I heard this said more than once. While organic results are needed and wonderful, sometimes paid social is a necessity to get to that next level of success.

One hospital talked about getting the CEO on Twitter. In 8 months he went from having a brand new Twitter to 2,000+ followers, and they said that would not have happened if it weren’t for paid social. Think about investing in paid social, and what that could potentially do for your organization.

6. Content + Conversation + Community = the Holy Trinity

This is where it’s at. You need all three to have a lively online presence. You cannot only have one or two of the three and expect your online efforts to grow exponentially. They all need each other, so be sure to focus on generating solid content and interactions to trigger the rest of the process.

7. Be Cautious About Chasing the Shiny New Thing

For you early adopters out there, hold your horses. Just because a new marketing strategy emerges or you hear about a tactic that is working for someone else, does not mean you need to drop what you’re doing and change your programs and campaigns.

There’s something called the cycle of saturation. In a nutshell, the cycle of saturation shows the life cycle of a new technique. You may just need to take an old tactic and tweak it to make it “new.” My next point is a perfect example.

8. Generational Marketing

We’re all the same; we just consume differently. As marketers, it’s our job to figure out how different generations consume. To refer back to my previous takeaway, studies show that millennials enjoy receiving mail. While this may look like an obsolete marketing tactic, you just had to tweak it (realize millennials are the correct audience) and use it that way.

As time goes on, this will change. We will pivot and adapt and cater to how the different generations are consuming in 10, 20, and 50 years from now!

9. Providing Value Never gets Old

At the end of the day, providing value is the real goal. You could do all sorts of fancy marketing tactics and spend lots of money, or use basic marketing tactics and spend minimal money. Either way, it doesn’t matter – as long as you provide value.

Did you attend HITMC? Comment a takeaway below! Get more juicy healthcare marketing content here.

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Author Brian Shilling

Brian is a Branding & Digital Marketing Director with experience leading diverse teams of marketers and designers in strategic marketing, content creation, and crafting comprehensive messaging and positioning platforms for our healthcare and tech clients. To learn more about Brian's experiences and qualifications, visit our leadership team page.